


Snow & Sin

by ladyface



Category: In the Bleak Midwinter (Webcomic)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 15:34:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28530783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyface/pseuds/ladyface
Summary: Anya knew it was him, just as her mother said. She knew it was him from the moment she saw him. Scared out of her mind with a gun in her face, it still felt like coming home. It hit her again every time she caught sight him for the first time in a new life.
Relationships: Anya/Omega
Comments: 18
Kudos: 56





	Snow & Sin

**Author's Note:**

> Union for In the Bleak Midwinter; Week January 3-9, 2021
> 
> un•ion:  
> 1) an act or instance of uniting or joining two or more things into one  
> 2) something that is made one : something formed by a combining or coalition of parts or members
> 
> All characters belong to Kat and Ali- find their webtoon here:  
> https://www.webtoons.com/en/sf/in-the-bleak-midwinter/list?title_no=1946&page=1

Anya knew it was him, just as her mother said. She knew it was him from the moment she saw him. Scared out of her mind with a gun in her face, it still felt like coming home. It hit her again every time she caught sight him for the first time in a new life. And now he was here in front of her, just as he had been for the last two months, training her, talking to her, dancing around the edge of something with her.  
  
They stood opposite to each other, orbiting the center of the old warehouse. They had been meeting there for weeks, trying to come to an agreement, some way that they could work the whole war out- just the two of them, and during that time he had decided to train her. He claimed it was so she didn’t get herself caught and compromise their plans... but there was always something predatory about the way he looked down at her through his furrowed brows while silently cycling his weight through his feet to stalk her around the circle they made.  
  
Despite their tentative partnership, Anya still felt like Omega was holding himself back from truly being on her team. They were working together, but they did not feel _together_. Not to Anya. She had thought that maybe, just maybe, after months of meeting that he would open himself up to her more and let her inside his world, but his expression always remained guarded. As she waited for him to strike and test her skill in hand to hand combat, her mind wandered back to the only day she ever saw anything other than restraint in his eyes...  
  
It was before they started training. Anya had been running late that day. She usually snuck out around sundown, but Everly needed her to reinventory their supplies after dinner and she couldn’t think up a way to wiggle out of it. She ran through her checklist as quickly as possible, noting their dwindling supply of insulin with a heavy heart, and all the while wondering if Omega would leave before she got there. She wondered if she was blowing their entire fragile agreement, or if he even cared. She left the base as soon as she could, squeezing her hands with unease the whole way to the warehouse.  
  
She arrived to find it empty, and her heart dropped. Slumping against the wall and crossing her arms to wait in the cold and see if he would show, her fingers began to tap against her elbows, and her thoughts drifted. She hated waiting. She hated being left alone to dread something. Her mind would constantly run wild through the worst possibilities. Usually, her imagination was far worse than reality, and being abandoned with no purpose and only herself for company was not something Anya chose to do regularly.  
  
Even with her brain running amok through every horrible outcome, Omega usually had a way of being the epitome of everything she _wasn’t_ worrying about.  
  
She got up and began to pace, fretting that their fragile agreement was shattered because of her. Not for the first time, she thought of Ivan and how angry he would be with her choice to do this, how foolish she felt for putting everything on the line for something so delicate, but she quickly pushed that aside, only to have it replaced with more anxiety. Because of her tardiness that night, any chance of finding peace without endless bloodshed was over- he would never appear in the warehouse again, and she would forever be left with an empty hole inside of her. She was dizzy with dread, about to just grab her bag and leave, when he suddenly appeared.  
  
She stopped and stared. The mere sight of him settled the weight in her stomach, dropped something else in its place, calmed her fluttering heart. She remembered why she began this crazy partnership in the first place. She was drawn to him and their common goal of peace had given them both every reason they needed to move on from their first few meetings to find even ground. As she looked up at his face, she felt her breathing slowly come back to normal.  
  
He peered back at her. He didn’t look angry. In fact, as she watched his dark gaze travel quickly over her form, she felt like he was checking her for injuries. When his eyes found hers again, she blinked at what looked like _relief_ pouring out from his fathomless eyes, but then he turned his head, and it felt like a wall slamming up in front of her, stopping her from falling any farther into whatever pit he had left open. When he looked back at her, his eyes were expressionless once again.

They spent that evening mostly discussing the movements of both the human and android forces, strategizing a way to generally avoid conflict without seeming like the other side was being fed information. With the moon high in the sky, they left the warehouse in silence. Anya was just about to round the corner north, back toward her base when she heard Omega speak.

“We’ll start training next week. Come prepared. You need to learn how to defend yourself.”

When she turned to look back at him in confusion, he was already gone.  
  


* * *

  
  
Anya fell once more into the present with her back on the floor, surprised by Omega looming over her, blue eyes glowing, hands on either side of her head.

“You need to pay more attention,” he muttered gruffly, his eyes fading as he rolled off of her and retreated. “I think we’re done for the day. You’re distracted.”

She felt some semblance of a blush rising on her face, slightly embarrassed at being called out. She was grateful to be done though; all of her muscles ached from constant exertion and stress. She moved to pack up her bag and get ready to head out, expecting Omega to head out the door without any other words, as he often did. As she slipped her gloves over her hands, she felt his gaze on the back of her neck.

“What are you thinking about?”

She almost dropped her glove as she started and whipped around. Unwilling to let him know she had been distracted by him, she pulled at the first worry that sprang to the front of her mind. “We’re running out of insulin. Ivan’s little brother, Misha, is diabetic and the only way he can survive in this absolutely fucked world is with insulin. I don’t know where to find any more, and I don’t know how to tell them we’re running out.” She was surprised to find that by the time she was done speaking she was out of breath, her chest rising and falling rapidly. She was sure she sounded desperate, because she was. She was tired of not having enough of anything. Enough compassion, enough time, enough insulin, enough words, enough intelligence, enough of herself… she was tired of not being enough.

Omega merely made a muffled noise, looked her over once, nodded, and walked out without looking back.

Anya wanted to scream. Why ask her the question if he wasn’t going to at least pretend he cared? Why was he even doing this, _whatever this was_ , with her? What was holding him back from giving her as much as she was giving him?

As she walked back to the base, she thought about the contrast between them. He was a war general; she, a nurse. Her body count was an example of her failure, of people she couldn’t save. His was a beacon of achievement, but she wondered if he felt that way about it. It was so hard to know what thoughts passed behind the mask he wore. She wondered if he felt the same pull she felt. The universe had bound them together for some purpose, but some days it just felt like a cruel irony. They would forever remain circling each other, inexorably, just like they did in the warehouse.

She fell asleep underground, wondering what it would feel like to be cared for by him, thinking of the look of relief in his eyes, contemplating what it meant, and all the while feeling as alone as ever.

* * *

When she showed up the next week, bone weary and running on empty, Omega was already there, waiting, with several small boxes stacked next to him. Curious, she walked up to inspect them, feeling his gaze follow her movement. As she placed her hand on one of the boxes, she glanced at him through her eyelashes, looking quickly back down when she found his eyes already boring into hers. Was he looking for a reaction? Her brow furrowed, and she moved to open the lid.

Carefully packaged inside were vials upon vials of insulin. Her hand flew to her mouth as tears pricked at her eyes. Blinking rapidly, she closed the box back up and swallowed. “Thank you,” she whispered without looking up. She didn’t want to cry in front of him. She wished she could turn off her silly emotions, but the fact that he _had_ been listening to her made her want to weep.

She startled when she felt his cool fingers barely there on her chin, gently guiding her face up towards his. Her breath caught in her throat and she squeezed her eyes shut, humiliated by the single tear that slipped out and trailed down her cheek. She felt his hand pull away sharply, and heard him make a noise in the back of his throat. She desperately wanted to know what his expression looked like in that moment, if it was one of disapproval, disgust, annoyance, or something else entirely, but she remained frozen, eyes wide shut. Before she heard his feet step away, she swore she felt the whisper of an almost _tender_ touch brushing her tears away, but she probably just imagined it. She was starved for affection after all.

When she could trust herself not to break down, Anya finally looked up to find the boxes moved next to the door, and Omega in position opposite of her, ready to continue their training. He was watching her again, his eyes betraying nothing.

* * *

Several weeks went by without them being able to meet. The android and human forces barely interacted in that time, just as they had hoped and planned for. Anya acted surprised when Everly found the extra insulin she had hidden, and she held a secret smile when Ivan’s eyes lit up again, and Misha’s face split into his signature gap-toothed grin. She would have to find a way to actually thank Omega for giving them a sliver of hope. Something in the back of her mind told her that he hadn’t done it for anyone other than her, but she wondered how much of that was her own selfish heart wanting more than she deserved.

He got a message to her one evening after another uneventful week, saying it was safe for them to finally meet again. After dinner, she said her goodnights and slipped up to her room. She was humming tunelessly to herself, packing up her bag, and trying not to let herself feel excited at the thought of seeing Omega again, when Alexei walked in.

“I know where you’re about to run off to,” he stated in a low voice, as soon as the door shut behind him, leaving the two of them alone.

Anya’s heart bottomed out in her stomach. “I suppose you think I’m stupid and you want me to stop immediately?”

“No.”

Her head whipped up to stare incredulously at her older brother. “Then why did you come in here? To hold the information over me?” Her eyes widened with apprehension as he looked down at her. “What do you want?” she asked slowly, dread creeping up her spine, raising little hairs as it went.

“You’re in the perfect position to give us all the information we need to finally win this war. I know you think he’s your soulmate, yes, I figured that out too, but he’s a _monster_ , Anya, and we can use the relationship you have to corner him and his sick family once and for all. Win him over. His sense of loyalty is not unlike our own. I’m sure he’d do whatever you wanted him to do if you made him yours.”  
  
Anya wanted to throw up. How had he found out? And worse, was he actually asking her... asking her to… What sick sense of loyalty did he think he had, if he was willing to whore his own sister out for the sake of winning?

Alexei didn’t wait for an answer. “I’ll let you go unattended, as you have been, that way he doesn’t suspect anything. But I expect you to return with a report on android plans tomorrow morning, Anya. Don’t even think about pulling anything over on me; you know you have no where else to go.”

With that, he left her alone once more as Anya sank to her bed, any sense of lighthearted excitement she had felt just minutes previously, dried up and gone. She felt dirty. Hopeless where she had once been hopeful, and unsure of how to get herself out of this horrible situation she now found herself in. Alexei was right. She had no where else to go.

* * *

“You’re distracted again tonight.”

Anya almost growled with frustration. Of course she was distracted. She didn’t want to see him hurt. Alexei knew about them. She-

“Is there a point to me training you if you’re not going to take it seriously?”

“I don’t know, Omega. I didn’t ask for this, and I don’t see much point in it,” she snapped back, feeling everything that had been building up inside of her for months bubbling just beneath the surface.  
  
“I thought you didn’t want to die.” He peered at her, and Anya felt uncomfortably exposed, like he could see all of the thoughts flying across her face. Maybe he knew what Alexei had asked her to do. Maybe that’s why he never opened himself up to her the way she did him.

She looked away from him, mumbling, “What does it matter if I die again. You know I’ll just keep coming back endlessly, spread thinner and thinner each time.”

She heard him shift in front of her.

“What’s wrong.”

It wasn’t a question. How was he so good at reading her when he himself was so unreadable? She hated that she was like an open book to him.

Anya hugged herself to keep from shaking and felt words spilling out of her without her permission. “I’m tired. I’m tired of always doing everything that’s asked of me. I’m tired of feeling like I’m dying a little every day anyway, tired of this war I woke up to. I don’t know if I can keep paying the price that everyone keeps asking of me.”

She looked back at him, unsurprised to find him studying her with the same mask-like expression he always wore. She gave a listless smile and shook her head. Whatever line he had drawn before her, he refused to cross. He would not concede the way she wanted him to, and now, with Alexei’s request in her ear, she wasn’t sure she wanted him to give in to her. She didn’t want to use him, but she wanted his vulnerability and companionship. She wanted to stop feeling so alone.

Her hands twitched, as if they were about to reach out to him without her approval, but she dug her fingernails into her arms. It hurt, but it cleared her head a little. She decided to focus on what was in front of her right now. “I’m done feeling sorry for myself,” she mumbled. “Let’s get back to it.”

She straightened and got into position. He stared at her thoughtfully for a moment longer, before lunging at her.

She sidestepped, and felt him fly past her, but he grabbed her wrist at the last second and spun them around. She elbowed him in the ribs, causing him to grunt, and wrenched herself free from his grasp, stepping backwards and away from him once more. She often wondered how easy he was going on her. She was sure he wasn’t fighting with his full strength- she had seen him on a battlefield.

He closed in on her again, grabbing her by the arm and attempting to twist it behind her back to grab the other one. She tried to hook her foot behind his ankle and trip him, but he avoided it, dropping her arm and sweeping backwards. She felt briefly triumphant at not being caught, when he caught her ankle with his own foot, and slammed her to the ground.

“Again,” he said.

She huffed, but took up position once more, holding her own for a small while. She manged to knock him down twice, but he soon had her pinned again. She tried to get out from under him, causing them to roll, but he still ended up on top of her once the dust settled.

His face was only inches from hers, and she was sure he could feel her heartbeat stuttering in her chest. Her wrists were held over her head by his hands, and she found him staring down at her once again.

Here he was, spending time he probably didn’t really have, trying to keep her from dying. That had to mean he cared about her more than her own blood, right? Was it because he wanted her to stay alive? To not suffer?

He studied her as she caught her breath, not moving from where they were on the floor. His expression was closed, as always, but his gaze was attentive, almost as if he were trying to commit her to memory. His eyes flickered, and for a brief second, his mask slipped- she saw bitterness staring back her.

She blinked up at him and it finally clicked. He was _waiting_ for her to betray him. He wouldn’t allow himself to open up to her because he felt that she would inevitably let him down. It was almost like he knew what Alexei had just asked her… like he had expected it from the beginning. And Anya knew that he would let her betray him. He would let her use him, if that’s what she wanted. _That_ was the bitterness that was staring back at her- his own disgust at himself. _Had_ he anticipated being betrayed the whole time? Yet he still trained her. He still took the time to make sure she could protect herself.

She stared back at him as he drew infinitesimally closer to her face. His expression shifted again, and she felt something catching in her veins, thrumming up through her chest. The intensity of his eyes caused heat to pool in her abdomen, and his thumb seemed to subconsciously slide along the inside of her right wrist, where her soulmate mark glowed faintly over her wildly thumping pulse.

Then his expression hardened, he let go of her, and began to stand up.

Anya’s hands shot up to grab a hold of him, twisting her fingers in his shirt and dragging him back toward her. She didn’t want to let him get away. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her lips into his.

As soon as her mouth brushed against his, Omega took control. It was as though a dam broke inside of him and suddenly Anya was drowning. He drew her into himself, pulling her up off of the floor and into his lap.

They were both so starved for touch.

She ran her hands along his shoulders as he deepened the kiss. One of his hands wound its way into her hair, braided and resting along her neck. He used his grip to arch her head back, while his other hand slid over her throat. She shivered as his finger tips brushed over her collarbones and into the dip of her throat as if he were making a map of her.

She ran a hand along his jaw and up over his cheek, almost crying when she felt him press his face into her palm for a moment. He was lonely too.

The hand that had been resting gently on her throat was now running along the hem of her shirt, slipping under and up to splay out along the small of her back. She gasped at the touch, and when her mouth opened, he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss further.

It was an unhurried and curious kiss, so contrasted to the way she felt like she was running through her day to day life. She ran her hands over him, feeling his body, hard and pale as marble, but still warm to the touch. She felt like she was trying to memorize the way he felt, the dips and curves of his muscles, the shells of his ears, the way his hair tapered off at the base of his neck. His tongue slid against hers, and he tasted like snow. Snow and sin, and yet so much like coming home.

Omega used the hold he had on her hair to pull her head to the side, further exposing her neck. Leaving her lips, he peppered gentle kisses along the column of her throat and back up her jaw until she whimpered and fisted her hands into his shirt.

Alexei’s words slammed back into her consciousness. Was she doing exactly what he meant for her to do? Was she playing the whore and making Omega her’s by giving in to what she wanted? She felt disgust at herself rising up like bile in her throat.

Omega’s hands now cradled her face, drawing her mouth back to his, almost like he knew where her mind had wandered and wanted to pull her attention back to him. Crushing her lips against his fiercely, she tried to wrap herself around him and feel as much of him as possible. He pulled her into him just as desperately, running his hand up her back again and then around to her front. His fingers ghosted over the swell of her breasts and she felt her nipples pebble. She found herself arching even more into him, keening slightly as his mouth found the junction between her neck and shoulder once more.

She ran her fingers up into his hair, scratching gently at the base of his neck, and he groaned into her throat, the vibration rumbling up from his chest and reverberating into hers. He continued to tease her breasts, and Anya felt an ache settling in between her legs.

She hadn’t known she could feel so many things at once. Everything was swirling together, growing into something that felt bigger than herself, sensation and emotion all coming to the surface until she felt she was coming apart at the seams from trying to hold it all in. She had no idea that she could affect him like this. She didn’t know that feeling and hearing him react to her would be the thing that affected her most of all.

They finally broke apart, resting their foreheads together while Anya caught her breath and Omega withdrew his hands from under her shirt, settling them around her waist instead.

With her eyes closed, feeling her heartbeat stuttering wildly, she decided to be honest. “Alexei wants me to use you, by using myself like a whore. I don’t know if I just gave him what he wanted by doing this… I don’t… I don’t know.”

“And what do _you_ want, Anya?” His voice was rough and dark, and the sound of it caused her to shiver.  
How long had it been since someone had asked her that? She dropped her forehead to his shoulder, amazed at how comfortable she felt in that moment. “I want…” She trailed off. “I want to be selfish. I want to have everything I can’t have. I want you, but I don’t want to use you. I want what I want, but I also can’t let myself have it.”

He pulled her head up to look her in the eyes, and his expression was so open and sincere that Anya felt like breaking down. They felt like they were together now. Finally a unified front.

“Have me,” he whispered. “We can figure the rest out later, together.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is obviously an AU of sorts. I'm not really sure when it's set, but I think of it as maybe a year into the war for Anya. She and Omega have such a complicated relationship, Anya has a lot of baggage, and Omega has plenty of negative feelings about himself. I wanted to explore so much in this. I felt like I went half into most of it. Also, sorry if I gave you blue balls. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!  
> -ladyface


End file.
